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Law professor attends, participates in international conference

Michael W. Lewis, professor of law at Ohio Northern University’s Pettit College of Law, attended and participated in a conference titled “The Boundaries of Battlefield: A Critical Look at the Legal Paradigms and Rules of Countering Terrorism” at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) - The Hague in The Netherlands from Jan. 10-11.

The two-day conference was hosted by the T.M.C. Asser Institute in cooperation with the International Humanitarian and Criminal Law Platform, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, and the Municipality of The Hague.

The conference’s name was taken from the title of Lewis’ 2012 article, which first appeared in the Texas International Law Journal. Accompanying Lewis were ONU law students currently enrolled in the Law of War seminar he is teaching as part of ONU Law’s interactive January term.

The conference’s object was to “discuss the details of various approaches states take against non-state actors with the goal of countering terrorism.” Specifically, the conference addressed “issues related to the uses of force and how these may affect and define the geographic and temporal scope and limitations of the laws of armed conflict in relation to counterterrorism.”

In addition to attending, Lewis participated on two panels during the conference: “Wherever War? Geographic Limitations of Armed Conflict” and “Law Enforcement Approach in Counterterrorism.”

Conference attendees included Gilles de Kerchove, the counterterrorism coordinator of the European Union; Jelena Pejic, the legal adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross; William Banks, director of the Institute of National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse University; Dieter Fleck, president of the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War; Liesbeth Lijnzaad, the legal adviser to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, the Stockton professor of law at the U.S. Naval War College.

The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) - The Hague is an independent knowledge center that focuses on information creation, collation and dissemination pertaining to the preventative and international legal aspects of counter-terrorism.